(2003)
Answers from Marie Krane Bergman (MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), Sasha Earle (MFA, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1999), Adam Leech (MFA SAIC, 2000, Rijksakademie, 2001-2002) Michael Kiresuk (MFA SAIC, 2000), and Bill Gerhard, fabricator (MFA, SAIC, 2001).
Marie Krane Bergman: Cream Co, on one level, is merely an idea that there is a connectedness among persons and things that yields art objects. I believe (and have for a long time) that art (including art others call MKB's art, my art) relies on connectedness and that connectedness (an agreement between at least two people) is the real author of all art objects. In other words, all art objects are a result of a conversation and Cream Co. is a way of naming a conversation.
Unlike other artist-collaboratives, I think that the Cream Co. art practice is like a traditional art practice, not collaborative any more than art has always been collaborative, that is artists have always solicited the help of others. With Cream Co., in "my" art practice, I simply have a way of acknowledging the help of others.
In another way, sometimes, two or more people working for or with or in cream co. create artworks unlike artwork anyone in the group had made previously. These works (including the digital print of Taffy by Mike Kiresuk, and the "Gift Shop" and "Library" installations at Really Real), I suppose, result from a "collaborative" effort. Often, the art is an unintended consequence of a certain activity.
On the website, we've included art that would traditionally be MKB art, art that resulted from one of my cream co. ideas and to art that would traditionally be Adam Leech art or Sasha Earle art. Adam, by and large, sees the world, as I do, from a cream co. point of view. (He, Mike Kiresuk and I started talking about these things during grad school 97-00). Through the course of Really Real, friends and others encouraged me to "own" my ideas about connectedness and to present myself as an advocate of cream co art. Rather than remaining "invisible" and giving in to the complete self-obliteration the Cream co. way of seeing the world requires, I've decided to put my name on the project in order to commit to cream co, and take responsibility for it.
Adam Leech: First of all, I think Cream Co. is about the way art is often historicized vs. the way it is actually experienced. The history of art focuses on individuals and singular achievement rather than group activity. I can only guess why. Perhaps it is nominalism and simplicity. Regardless, I think Cream Co. is attempting to acknowledge connectedness among persons and things as essential and meaningful rather than as peripheral.
But more importantly, I think that cream co. attempts to represent that connectedness in the objects that are produced. This is unprecedented. We see it in the gift shop and the library. It exists in the paintings but that is not how they are read as far as I can tell. The Marie style-titles, however, really do attempt to represent connectedness in the paintings and could be re-introduced to the mix.
Secondly, I often think of Cream co, in a micro and a macro way. The Macro way is like thinking of a huge (global, international, whatever) network of people that are connected and producing objects. This extends to magazines and curators and everyone else in the mix that might, in some funny way, contribute to the production of an object. It's a cream co. view of the world. This view for me is really refreshing because it does change the way I see my place in the making of things and also it really clarifies the fallacy of the way things are often historicized.
The Micro is different. Its Marie and Mike and Sasha etc. chillin' out at the studio. It can no longer be considered like the Macro Network. It becomes personal. It's a mixture of personalities, temperaments, etc. It has all the aspects of intimate long-term engagement. Some make cream co. productions like the Taffy print, some Gesso for money, some seem to work for free. Regardless, since Marie pays people to work there, an economic element is always rubbing with and/or against cream co ideas.
Michael Kiresuk: The issue I am dealing with Cream Co. is that it mixes collaboration with labor and philanthropy. That is a big mess in my mind right now...In dealing with person to person art collaboration it is less of an issue. But with Really Real, Marie had the “primary mover” power that was backed by financial power that literally made the show better by factors of 100. Marie received direct benefit in putting on a stellar show and I think the Cream Co aspect is important, but “at the end of the day” it is a MKB show with a strong curatorial statement about art practice. We as artists have long been content with giving that kind of power to an outside curator (who torques things) but advances his/her career on a different (museum related) track. With the artist as curator, there is tension in that there is direct and indirect competition toward recognition and independence.
Or in Marie's case...total assimilation of Art and practice past to present.
Since my friends are music people they always have discussions about music producers...typically when you hear a “base” version of a song compared to what the best producer for Sony music does for the album -- the song is vastly different. Marie takes this kind of producer approach to art...and a number of works are altered drastically by her vision. We could start measuring grey levels here with collaboration in mind but with my music friends who are producer conscious — the producer is actually more important than the artist. They make whipped cream out of shit. This is where authorship rears its head and the discussion starts...
Its strange...my friends who were making disco house music are now buying the rights to a song (buying it for $1000-2000) and sending it to other producers to make it better — then issuing it on their label for distribution. I think Cream Co. operates like that, in some weird way...
As for dilemmas in collaboration, labor, and philanthropy...that Ph.D. thesis is waiting.
Sasha Earle: My involvement with Cream Co stems out of a desire for an art practice that accurately describes my mental desires and physical place within the universe. Cream Co fulfills a need for communal interaction and production generally more accepted in other art forms such as music or film. I believe that the acknowledged connectedness which functions as author and subject has released my practice from the constrictions of a practice that relies heavily on inflated self esteem and aggressive self-promotion. Perhaps inadvertently, my relationship with Cream Co. has tempered these issues allowing space for open ends, risk and above all hope.